Monday, October 31, 2005

How Advanced Can a Civilization Become?: "An interview done last year with a theoretical physicist in which he talks about how advanced civilizations can become. The answers are surprisingly detailed for something so theoretical :)"

Sony dropped around 250,000 mulitcolored bouncing superballs down a San Francisco street to film a commerical for their Bravia flat-screen televisions. What you see above is how it started, click below to watch the result:

2006 to herald first Macs capable of running both Mac OS X and Windows: "Two worlds will collide in 2006, producing the first systems capable of running both Windows and Mac OS. For years, computer users have sought a hybrid. Not a half-electric, half-gasoline motor vehicle, but a computer that combines the elegance of Apple's software design with the raw horsepower of an Intel CPU."

How to Defend Yourself from the Coming Robot Rebellion: "Roboticist Daniel H. Wilson, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, has written a humorous guide to protecting you from various robots, noting that, 'Any robot could rebel, from a toaster to a Terminator, and so it is crucial to learn the strengths and weaknesses of every robot enemy.'"

Diablo 3 will be an MMORPG?

Chris Hartgraves from WasteLandsGaming.com, former employee of Blizzard Entertainment, has sent us word that Diablo 3 will be aired at Blizzcon. From what we've heard Diablo 3 is going to be an MMO, as massive as World of Warcraft, with the concept of Hell invading Heaven.

Giant Robot Dinosaurs with Video!!!: "The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan has created some incredible new robot/animatronic dinosaurs that can actually walk around. I would tell you more about..."

Next week we begin podcasting for a live audience at Kush - come out Monday night, we will be recording the show from 8:30 - 9:30pm, and there will be lots of fun all night as the Urban Gypsy Circus kicks off the first week of Permission Mondays at Kush!

Show some love: what was your favorite band this week?

The Beautiful New Born Children Colder The Silver Jews Eux Autres The London Beach The Light Footwork Old Time Relijun Yacht Mount Eerie Lightning Bolt An Horse Boards of Canada

How to prepare for flu pandemic: "How to prepare for flu pandemic - This is serious stuff, and very good material! Read it now while there is time to prepare. Written by a medical doctor for the lay person.From Green Lantern"

CommonBits provides downloadable political media, including regular Daily Show excerpts (no worries, Jon Stewart says it’s cool). CommonFlix and CommonTunes collect freely available music and video and organize it by category, popularity, and age. Much of this content is distributed via BitTorrent, which provides for efficient, decentralized file sharing.

Nearly a fifth of all human genes have been patented - the majority by private biotechnology companies, according to a survey carried out by Kyle Jensen and Fiona Murray at MIT. Besides, the rights to some human genes, such as BRCA1, the gene linked to breast cancer, are claimed by more than one company, with as many as 20 patents asserting rights to various uses.

Many scientists fear that by monopolising specific genes, companies will exclude other researchers from studying them.

John Harris, at the University of Manchester, said: 'I worry that this kind of patenting could have impacts on the cost of health and the freedom to access it.'

According to Helen Wallace of Genewatch, the patent grab threatens to skew research into areas where intellectual property rights are easy to secure. 'It encourages a search for genes, when many problems with health could be addressed by better research into diet, social and economic factors.'

Apple's hardware suggestions for gamers

Apple has put some hardware suggestions on their website, for example a Mac mini for "casual gamers", the 20-inch iMac G5 for "intermediate gamers" and - this is where it's getting interesting - a quad-core G5 with 16 GB of RAM and a Quadro FX 4500 for "The Ultimate Gamer". Ok, who needs that for games?

Friday, October 28, 2005

Missing U.S. cat found in France: "Missing U.S. cat found in France - When Emily the cat went missing a month ago, her owners looked for their wandering pet where she had ended up before -- the local animal shelter. This week they learned Emily sailed to France.Now that is one smart cat! Probably couldn't deal with Bush anymore!From Nony"

Symbolism can be defined as the investing of outward things or actions with an inner meaning, most often for the expression of religious or mystical ideas. Symbolism has a far greater presence in history and even contemporary culture than most realize. More than an ancient, esoteric discipline, it really serves as the centerpiece for an entirely new modern philosophy and understanding of the world. We hear from Steven Armstrong, Ph.D. (cand.), Research Librarian at Rosicrucian Park on this fascinating subject (part one of two)

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Real George W. Bush: "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Real George W. Bush - ... Bush is finished as a force in American politics. How he ever got to become president in the first place -- not once, but twice -- will remain a subject social scientists will study and debate for decades to come. Because there was plenty of evidence that George W. Bush was a made man. He had accomplished nothing in his adult life on his own -- not one thing ... From Nony"

The Scandal isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War: "The Scandal isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War - The conspiracy that bubbles around Judith Miller protecting a source -- whose name she couldn't remember -- and Robert Novak using his column to out undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame should soon evaporate. The next step should lead Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to the heart of the matter: a much more pernicious conspiracy designed to mislead the United States into war with Iraq. The crime to name a covert CIA official pales in comparison with conspiring to lead the nation to war under false pretenses.From Nony"

Patterns of Visual Math

The Real Price of Gold

The Real Price of Gold: "The Real Price of Gold - A £1,000 wedding ring - equivalent to one ounce of gold - creates up to 30 tons of toxic waste. To produce that single ounce, miners have to quarry hundreds of tons of rock, which are then doused in a liquid cyanide solution to separate the gold.From Juniper"

The Toledo Blade, which was first onto the so-called ‘Coingate’ scandal in Ohio, broke another related story this afternoon, reporting that a federal grand jury has indicted the central figure in the coin scandal --Tom Noe, the former Maumee coin dealer suspected of laundering money into President Bush's reelection campaign.

Noe's attorney, Jon Richardson, told The Blade he was called this afternoon and informed of the indictment.

Frog secretions block HIV infections: "A new weapon in the battle against HIV may come from an unusual source –tropical frogs. Investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have discovered that compounds secreted by frog skin are potent blockers of HIV infection."

Amazing Fractal Cabbage

This is so visually stunning an object that on first encounter it's hard to imagine you're looking at a garden vegetable rather than an alien artefact created with molecular nanotechnology. Then you realise that vegetables are created with molecular nanotechnology, albeit the product of earthly evolution, not extraterrestrial engineering.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

'We need to design some pretty revolutionary spacesuits if we're really going to realize human exploration of other [planetary] bodies,' says Dava Newman, at MIT. Together with her team, she's trying to build the BioSuit, a form-fitting 'second skin,' designed for lunar and Martian living.

A primary function of a spacesuit is to maintain air pressure in the airless vacuum of space or the sparse atmosphere of Mars. In the late 1960s, Paul Webb created a spacesuit that featured six layers of elastic that pressed the body to mimic pressure. The design was lighter and provided greater range of motion than the current 'gas bag.' Webb tested the suit and its physiological effects and wrote a report in 1971 that said the idea was viable and safe. But NASA didn't bite.

Newman took up the challenge. The proposed BioSuit will consist of a skintight body suit, a hard torso and backpack for life-support systems and equipment, and a domed helmet.

Newman's team has made several lower-leg prototypes, including one of nylon-spandex, one of elastic wrapped like bandage, and another of pressurized foam painted with layers of urethane.

Ultimately, the BioSuit must maintain fairly constant pressure over the whole body as it moves.

Putting on a BioSuit might feel a bit like squeezing into a wetsuit several sizes too small. The researchers are looking to metals and polymers that expand, contract, or change their properties in response to heat or electricity. Most of these technologies exist, but are too weak or power-hungry to use yet.

The possibility of a patient lowering their blood pressure at the flick of a switch has been raised by researchers at Oxford University and Imperial College London who report that they can make patients’ blood pressure increase or decrease by stimulating with electrodes very specific regions of the brain.

A patient having surgery to implant electrodes. After surgery the electrodes can be switched on and off by the patient using a handheld box.

Deep brain stimulation – placing very thin electrodes onto exact locations in the brain – is already used to relieve pain or to help Parkinsons’ sufferers to move better. This potentially offers a cure to sufferers of high blood pressure that does not depend on taking drugs long-term.

Instant Home, a work by Valeska Peschke, is a 50 sqft house that travels in a box and takes only two minutes to inflate into a pitched-roof house. Complete with furniture: sofa, lamp, coffee table, fireplace, TV, etc. Instant Home set up in locations typically considered uninhabitable- city parking lots to suburbian driveways, to the deserts of the western United States.

Made me think of Lambert Kamps's hilarious Inflatable Furniture. With his system, anyone can live in a very tiny flat. Just inflate the furniture you need: with the press of a button, you can make a living room, a study, a dining or a bedroom.

Love him or hate him, Todd McFarlane has been one of the biggest movers and shakers in the comic book industry since the 1980s. After leaving Marvel to create his own comic line, McFarlane created Spawn, a title that sold well by any comic book standards, and earned a theatrical release in 1997.

In a recent interview with IGN, McFarlane discussed his future plans for Spawn.If you dig Todd and his work, the entire interview is well worth the read, but for now we'll just talk movie info. McFarlane is very realistic regarding a Spawn sequel; he knows the first movie was not well received, and that if he hopes to film a second he will not be given the budget that other big title comic book movies are receiving.

His answer to this problem is perhaps surprising, and frankly a bit refreshing in its straightforwardness. ‘Eliminate the fantastic,’ says McFarlane. As in, cut out the elements that would lead to a need for big budget special effects. He cites Frankenstein as an example, noting that everything in the Frankenstein story was real and human, including the lead characters of the doctor and Igor. ‘The only thing that was fantastic was the monstrosity in the middle.’ McFarlane offers two tibits regarding the plot of his sequel. The storyline will primarily follow a character named Twitch, who eventually becomes Sheriff Brody. Thematically, the new movie will revolve around the reality of ghosts and spirits in the Spawn universe, a familiar concept to Spawn fans.

Can a Spawn movie succeed without the elements of the fantastic that fill the pages of its comic book? It is certainly is an interesting angle to take; and frankly, given the success of its last attempt, there’s almost nowhere to go but up.

C’mon, admit it. You liked Predator. You liked the b-movie dialogue and the shoot-em-up action. You wanted Alien v. Predator to be fantastic. You wanted to revel in the glory of the Predator backed by modern special effects on the big screen. And they broke your heart. You wanted them to bring you flowers and candy, maybe write you some poetry; you wanted them to treat you like a princess and instead they treated you like a whore. They took advantage of your affection and gave you nothing but tears in return.

Well, pick up the tattered shreds of your dignity, because a new beau may be coming to town. According to an anonymous tipster at Latino Review, Twentieth Century Fox is now in talks with John McTiernan to bring Predator back to the big screen. The tip reports that the new movie will be 'not a sequel, not a remake, not a prequel; more of a restart.' Apparently, there’s talk that the story will focus around Dutch’s (Arnold S.) grown up commando son. Mr. Tipster also says that John Cena’s name has been tossed around for the lead, but it’s too early for anything to be certain.

The Colbert Report premiered Monday (M-TH, 11:30pm, following The Daily Show on Comedy Central), and if you haven’t yet caught it (fools), here are the first week’s episodes available for download, courtesy CommonBits:

The Orrery is a ten foot tall planet tracking display. The lower half is a mechanical binary calculation engine. Each layer is calculating the orbit if one of the six human eye visible planets (Mercury through Saturn) to 28 bits of accuracy. The Orrery is primarily made of monel (a nickel copper alloy), and stainless steel. The planet spheres are ground from natural stones that resemble each planet they represent.

The Orrery is based off the same mechanical calculation engine that powers the 10,000 year clock, the original prototype of The Long Now Foundation.

The 10,000 year clock is a ‘monument scale, multi-millennial, all mechanical clock [built] as an icon to long term thinking’. It ticks once a year, its hand counts the centuries, and it chimes every millennium.

Human 2.0

We are making exponential progress in every type of information technology. Moreover, virtually all technologies are becoming information technologies. We can reliably predict that in the not too distant future we will reach what is known as "The Singularity".

Must see!!!

Beyond Treason - Depleted UraniumThis extremely powerful 89 minute film presents comprehensive documentation from United States Government archives of a massive cover-up, including military and civilian experimentation, dating back over 60 years.Hear the testimony of experts and of United States military veterans who demand answers to questions that the Department of Defense will not address

Friday, October 21, 2005

A letter from an African Princess

Hey kids,This morning I recieved a letter from this young lady who claimed to be in dire need of my help. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=34019344&Mytoken=D921E0F2-100E-FFA5-687C98271F7F934B47486638And whats more she claimed to be Nigerian royal. Heck it's not everyday you hear from a princess offering to share a million bucks with you, right? Riiight, so out of curiosity I read her story and have posted it for you all. I also posted my response at the bottom of the message so you can read it for yourself. Enjoy!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello Brian

My name is princess onome, I am the son of HRH King Solomon Abonime, the king of Ogoni Kingdom. I am 26 years old the only surviving son of my mother, My father was the king of Ogoni Kingdom the highest oil producing area in Nigeria. He was in charge of reviving royalties from the multi-national oil companies and government on behalf of the oil producing communities in Nigeria. After the killings and burning down of my fathers houses, properties and hanging of the Ogoni Nine(9) including Ken Saro Wiwa by the late dictator General Sani Abacha’s government, my father suffered stroke and died in August27th last year.

Before his death he called me and told me that he deposited the sum of Three Million United States Dollars with a Security Finance Company for a safe keeping. He advised me not to tell anybody except my mother who is the last wife of the (8) eight wives that he married. I am the only daughter and child of my Mother. The elder wives have taking possession of the whole wealth of my late father with their sons and daughters just because of African tradition.

Due to the love that my father had for my mother, he told me to relocate to a foreign country with the fund and start a new life that in no condition should I decide to stay in Nigeria because they will kill me and my mother if they came to find out that we have such money in our possession.

He handed over the document that backs up that fund in the Security Finance Company, which he made with my name as the beneficiary. Now I am soliciting for your help in receiving this Box that contain this fund on my behalf. My mother and I would be coming to you and we will invest with the money in your country, you will help us in suggesting the kind of business that will be good. Also you will find a bungalow for us where we will reside. You are entitled to a reasonable part of this money based on our agreement, and God will bless you as you help us because we have nothing left with us, the fund in question is the only hope we have. Please reply with your (1) private telephone Number (2) your Home address (3) Your nationality. Tell me more about your self and what you do for a living.private email; contact stan1963@o2.plYours sincerely,princess onome

Dear Princess, I am truly sorry to hear about your Father. May he rest in piece. As for the funds, I'm sure I can be of some assistance. We should invest that money as quickly as possible ina Roth IRA a mutual fund account, and diversify, as you know this will result in the highest yield over the long term. I also have a lovely guest cottage out back for you and your Mother to stay in. My only request is that you will need to send me a signed contract for my involvement in this matter. Please send all relevant information to the address below. By the way, why does your address below say Nigeria and your location on Myspace reads Virginia? Also I'm a bit confused did you say you were the son of HRH King Solomon Abonime? I know a few guys who call themselves "Queen" but never "Princess", :-D. I'm sure there was a malfunction on the part of Myspace. Anyway my cel phone numer is...

Anti-Bacterial Soap Is Bad For You.: "Ultimately if using it helps create more powerful bacteria. -- 'Anti-bacterial soaps and body washes in the household aren't any more effective in reducing illness than regular soap, and could potentially contribute to bacterial resistance to antibiotics, experts told a government advisory panel Thursday.'"

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Professional Flash Video Available: "Flash Extensions provides quality video tutorial regarding Flash and related technologies. The content is aimed to help those starting to build applications with Flash, developers transitioning from a previous language or platform to Flash (i.e. Java or .NET), and/or those who wish to learn new techniques in programming on the Flash Platform. Many of us are visual learners and therefore can learn more quickly by watching others, especially as it applies to Flash development. Flash does not follow many of the traditional conventions of other languages, which has lead to frustration when programming in Flash. We hope to help ease that frustration with a visual learning environment. We want to keep the content of this site accessible to everyone, not just those who work for large companies with large training budgets. Not all of us can afford $1500 for a set of DVD's! I hope you enjoy the videos...make sure to sign up for our mailing list and we will send you notices about upcoming videos. If you have any questions or requests regarding what you would like to see in the following weeks...Please email us!!! If you choose to subscribe to the mailing list please drop a line to let us know what you like (or dislike). Thank you and may your skills be extended with this site!"

Tricks to remembering names

Tricks to remembering names: "Being able to remember names is a valuable asset in both the business and social arenas. It helps you build instant rapport with new contacts, and, as many companies place a premium on interpersonal and relationship-building skills, it makes a decidedly good impression on employers, too. This is a few months old, but it is still a good read."

Tips For Better Handwriting

Tips For Better Handwriting: "I think there are many people today who could use help with handwriting. If you’re like me you do most of your writing digitally and your handwriting has gone to pot. That’s why these handwriting tips are so valuable. Handwriting is a skill. It needs to be practiced and requires technique."

Sunday, October 16, 2005

For global cooling, just spray

For global cooling, just spray: "Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh is proposing a fleet of yachts that sprays water droplets into the clouds as the way to damp down global warming. According to the researcher, the droplets will boost the whiteness of low-altitude clouds so that they reflect more sunlight back into space. Salter believes that chimneys mounted on a fleet of 500 sprayer yachts would cancel a year's worth of global warming from carbon dioxide emissions over their 20-year lifetime. The yachts will be propelled by spinning vertical cylinders known as Flettner rotors. The rotors will double as chimneys for the water droplets. As the remotely controlled vessels move through the water, the motion will drive turbines that will generate electricity to power the sprayers. Salter is investigating the use of a centrifuge or ultrasonic atomiser, like the nebulisers used for dispensing asthma drugs. Via New Scientist."

A 2,000 year old battery along with other world mysteries

Look at all the anomalies in our history ranging from the ancient 2,000 year old 'Baghdad Battery' to mystery skulls found from across the globe with inhuman characteristics. Somethings just don't add up, an interesting read either way.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Car that runs on Air, yes Air!

This car runs on air as the fuel. And you don't have to change the oil for 50,000km. It is one of those little city cars but its cool. They say that it cleans the air as you drive. Now that is really cool.

The Peril From Another Planet zone explores the variety of what we think are aliens, from UFO scares to popular fiction, both in book form and on cinema and TV screens.

The second zone looks at how scientists are exploring the possibilities of alien life, showing how even on Earth extreme conditions can produce weird and wonderful creatures we might describe as 'alien' (like the sea spider on the image above.)

Alien Worlds is a fantasy land where scientists predict what alien life might look like, and explain why.

Finally, in Alien Communication, the focus is on SETI - the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence - and begs the question what would we would most like to say to anything we might find out there...

For this exhibition, ART+COM has designed an installation that bring two worlds imagined by a group of scientists to life. Large curved surfaces provide a view to the planets of 'Aurelia' and 'Blue Moon' where alien species live in dynamic artificial simulation. Aurelia has no seasons, only two different sides: a dark side that is forever cold, trapped in constant winter; but the lighter side is so hot that it suffers from harsh storms and hurricane-force winds.

Blue Moon is more like Earth, a pale blue dot orbiting a giant gas planet. Oxygen makes up 30% of the planet's atmosphere, compared to 21% on Earth. But there's 30 times more carbon dioxide than on Earth. The result is a planet with an extreme greenhouse effect and a cloying atmosphere.

The visitors can interact with the creatures on the touch-sensitive surface to learn more about them or influence their behaviours, for example by encouraging the creatures to hunt for food or survive natural disasters prevalent on the planets.

These environments are stretching over 2 by 7.5 Meters each. Large-scale projection systems and a sensitive skin facilitate collaborative exploration of these environments.

Artist Brock Enright offers is notorious in the US as the man who performs 'bespoke executive kidnappings' for $1,500 a time. Every abduction is tailored to the phobias of each 'victim' to offer 'maximum terror'.

While kidnapping dominates perceptions of his company, VAS offers a host of 'customised reality adventures', or real-life video games. 'Some people are lonely and want to make friends,' says Enright. Some people want to be stalked, others want 'to feel like they're slowly going crazy'. After drawing up legal contracts detailing what they can and can't get away with, VAS bring these fantasies to life, with the help of actors and locations.

In 1998 Blast Theory launched a lottery in which the winners had the chance to be kidnapped. Ten finalists were chosen at random and put under surveillance. Two winners were then snatched and taken to a secret location where they were held for 48 hours.

The whole process was broadcast live onto the internet. Online visitors were able to control the video camera inside the safehouse and communicate live with the kidnappers.

During the run up to Kidnap, a 45 second video - the Kidnap Blipvert - was shown at cinemas around the UK. The Blipvert carried a freephone number, allowing people to register their interest.

A flickr group of photography taken by tossing digital cameras with the shutter open. The group seems to have been inspired by Ryan Gallagher’s attempts, though the image above was taken by flickr user _Nod.

(Click on Thumbnail for enlargement) Last Friday, my PowerBook's hard drive experienced catastrophic failure and I lost everything.

Fortunately, I'd made a backup of my disk the night before using the best backup software for Macs, Super Duper, so I was able to recover everything but that day's changes to my hard drive. I asked people to resend certain emails, including Charles Platt, and he gave me this great tip: set up a rule in Mac's Mail.app to send a copy of every email that goes in and out over to a Gmail account. That way, you'll always have a searchable archive of all the email you send and receive.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Hand-Carved Wooden Computer made of Redwood - Russian Site

Unbelieveable. That's all I can think of to say about this SWEET piece of work. The site is in Russian, so don't worry about the words, but the pictures say it all. There was another link to the same thing earlier, but this one contains more pictures and more detail.

Hand-Carved Wooden Computer made of Redwood - Russian Site

Unbelieveable. That's all I can think of to say about this SWEET piece of work. The site is in Russian, so don't worry about the words, but the pictures say it all. There was another link to the same thing earlier, but this one contains more pictures and more detail.

In a recent radio interview, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out that the U.S. has the widest gap between rich and poor of any country except Mexico and Russia. A huge pool of capital wealth is being amassed by 1% or less of the population while economic decline, in real dollars, is being felt by the majority. This economic injustice is our Berlin Wall. It separates us more concretely than racial, political or religious differences.

Currently, like the Soviets under Brezhnev, the administration mirrors the middle-class reaction of fear, defensiveness, and selfishness when it builds the wall higher. It does everything to protect the status quo of the privileged, which is outright injustice, but in addition it blocks any hope for a different future for the poor (or for anyone outside the country club wall, like gays and people of color) by the simple tactic of ignoring them.

Reich warns that economics has strong political consequences; in this case, the squeezed middle class is fearful of losing its status and therefore is more reluctant to help the underprivileged. Farther down the ladder, the lower middle class has to compete for jobs with the poor, giving rise to antagonism and more self-defensive fear of losing out. We all feel how insidious this trend has become. The politics of altruism that gave rise to social welfare and civil rights has turned around to the politics of corruption and 'Me First'.

A former moderate who's a friend of mine recently shocked me by saying, 'I used to want to help the blacks, but they hate us for trying to help, and there's nothing anybody can do about these religious fanatics. So I'm building my wall and hiding behind it.' This is Berlin Wall thinking at the grass roots level.

You'd think that somebody would want to fill this political vacuum. Why are there some 1,800 radio outlets along the lines of Rush Limbaugh but only one Air America? Our idealism is exhausted. The baby boomer generation had its anti-war movement forty years ago, and the experience was so demoralizing that few want to repeat it. Democratic politicians are stymied because they belong to the same privileged cabal as the Republicans. There was a time when a rich white male like Robert Kennedy would personally, physically stand in a crowd and expose himself to the poor as their standard bearer. No more. The tactics of fear are powerful, while the tactics of hope are fragile.

The best hope we have is that the 'silent majority,' Nixon's famous term for disgruntled white conservatives in the Seventies, has now reversed itself. The silent majority consists of citizens white and black who are totally opposed to the right-wing agenda. How did a right-wing coalition come to power? By organizing at the level of town meetings, city government, school boards, churches, and political action committees. Silence only ends when individual citizens stop being silent.

Goethe said that when you take your first step toward a difficult goal, unknown powers come to your aid. I think the Berlin Wall demonstrated that when a society deeply believes it's time to change, the agents of change will appear. Right now, the resolve of the silent majority is weak, but one day people will look at each other, and just as they said, 'It's time to end racial discrimination,' they will end the trend toward social injustice in its new economic guise.

New Invention Allows Humans to Walk On Water

Inventist is a small company near Portland, that is making a big splash with innovative ideas. The Aquaskipper is a human powered hydrofoil able to let users literally "walk on water" at a comfortable and impressive 17 mph!

Believe it or not, tomorrow (10/13) marks one year since John Kerry swept all 3 Presidential debates from George W.

Yet the MSM still has not gotten to the bottom of whether or not the swaggering leader of the 'Only Indispensable Nation' was cheating in the debates, by wearing a wire.The blogs did a good job last year raising hell about it, and the evidence seemed pretty clear to me--i.e., my eyes still work.

(I never did understand why Kerry didn't just slap W on the back during the opening handshake...or carry his microphone over closer to W, for some nice Jimi Hendrix feedback action...)

The evidence was even clearer to Dr. Robert Nelson of NASA, who ran a series of ingenious little experiments which showed dramatically that 'W' stands for 'Wired'.

But according to FAIR, the only papers which showed any initial interest in a real scientist demonstrating that our Prez was a cheater, quickly got cold feet.

The story just died. Or was killed.

Note these words of wisdom from Arianna's main man Bill Keller (as reported by Dave Lindorff, who dug into this story for both Salon & FAIR: 'In the end, nobody, including the scientist who brought it up, could take the story beyond speculation. In the crush of election-finale stories, it died a quiet, unlamented death.'

Quiet? There's some circular reasoning, given that they wouldn't pursue the story.

Unlamented? That's just not true.

Maybe it wasn't a wire. Maybe it was some sort of medical device, as some suggested. I don't buy it, but doesn't the public deserve to know that, too?

Others suggested it was some sort of special Secret Service protection. Pretty doubtful. That contraption didn't look anything like the bulletproof jacket that Jesse Jackson had to wear several times when I was on his 1988 campaign. And it sure looks like a little wire, not any kind of body armor.

Whatever it was, it was weird; it was unique; it was newsworthy. And it was very likely cheating--in the presidential debates. Yet the MSM left the story totally alone.

I have an idea--maybe Mr. Fitzgerald could ask Dick & Karl what it was, the next time they chat...

Lawyer Patrick Murphy and five other veterans of the Iraq war are asking questions about President Bush's policies in Iraq as part of their broader Democratic campaigns to win congressional seats in next year's elections.

Given their experience in Iraq, the six Democrats in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia say they are eminently qualified to pose the tough questions. Their reservations mirror public opinion, with an increasing number of Americans expressing concern about the mission and favoring a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The most recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed only 37 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, with 62 percent disapproving.

It's not just veterans, either. Americans from all walks of life -- sheriffs, teachers, public defenders -- are stepping up to the plate to provide the honest, serious leadership that our country deserves."

About Me

I've been drawing since I could walk. I love art. I'm a native New Yorker/ world traveler, father of 2. I started my career as a toy designer and transitioned to a cartoonist. I worked as a character artist for Disney for half a decade after which I got into the film industry where i was a storyboard / concept artist. I'm credited in several feature films commercials and music videos.